How do you deal with reality, when it trumps your fiction? When it threatens to make it obsolete?

Three weeks left to the release of my next book. Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm is a story where Korea plays a major role, not just the Koreans depicted in the plot. When I first began to write about Martin, an octogenarian in America, you realize quickly that people in his age were very likely to have been conscripted, or “drafted” as we normally say. Given his age, the Korean War was also a given, not that all drafted young Americans would’ve ended up there, but Martin did, and the story took its course. Mind you, at the time I began to write the book, Korea was in the news almost daily. And not in a good way.

Trump v Kim

One was called “dotard”, the other was insulted with regards to the size of their “buttons”, and for a while, it seemed as if the fragile seize-fire at the 38th parallel was seriously threatened. North Korea’s testing of ballistic missiles even had some of my friends in California afraid for their personal safety. I remembered the eighties and our fear for Russian missiles raining over Europe. War, a world war even, seemed suddenly possible. Having visited Korea in the past, I was afraid for my friends in Seoul, who live less than fifty miles from the border and who can be reached by conventional artillery fire from the north, let alone nuclear weapons. I later learned what Kim’s grandfather did to Seoul during the first days of the Korean War, and it scared me.

My trip to Korea

When I began to write the story about Martin, it was not meant to be a novel. I quickly realized that there was more to the story and let it take its course. I also realized that my knowledge about Korea wasn’t good enough, that I needed to know more. When I set foot in Seoul in Mid-January, things were quickly changing on the ground. All of a sudden, North Korea seemed to be interested in detente with its southern neighbor, and as I watched the Olympic torch being carried through the streets of Seoul, we learned of North Korean delegations coming to PyongChang to attend the impending games, and eventually, even Kim’s sister showed up, and Mike Pence was glad his wife never left his side…

Kim Jong-Un surprises the world

As I was watching the images on my TV screen last week, of the quickly arranged summit between the two leaders of Korea, of Kim crossing the border (last time a leader from the north “visited” the south was Kim’s grandfather, when he rolled into Seoul after more or less having flattened the city in four days) at Panmunjom, I had tears in my eyes. Yeah, I’m a softie. I watched on as the two men shook hands, all smiles, how Kim – unscripted apparently – invited President Moon to take a step back across the border into the north, have pictures taken before they anew crossed the border to the south for their meetings.

At the end of the day, the two leaders had agreed on a range of topics, including negotiations to finally put an official rubber stamp to the war, which officially was never ended at the ceasefire in 1953.

How this affects my novel…

Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm – Cover

I finished writing my book in February, which says a bit about just how fast things are developing on the Korean peninsula. Because when I wrote the book, the Olympic Games had ended, and the symbolic visit of Kim’s sister had been a success. But the thirty-head cheerleader group had drawn more chuckles and head-shakes due to their weird behavior, than being perceived as a serious step toward detente. The story ends in early April, just a few weeks ago, and I don’t mention any of this in the book. And just last week, we worked through the edits and sent the book into proofreading.

Now I’m wondering if I need to rewrite it. Not a lot, but do I need to mention the detente? It may not need more than a sentence or two, but on the other hand, we’ve seen this political tango in Korea before, two steps forward, two steps back. But Kim Jong-Un is a different person. Raised and schooled in Switzerland (his Korean accent raising eyebrows in Seoul), he is the first dictator in the family, only the third leader of North Korea, to be “protected” by a functioning nuclear deterrent. He’s young, he’s healthy, and he knows about the west in terms of how much better our lives are compared to what his citizens have to live with. Who knows, he might even miss walking the streets of Berne…

It’s the uncertainty of it all that is the biggest dilemma…

Not knowing what the future holds is making this so difficult. Not that we ever know what the future holds, but here in Europe, we can at least assume that the next years will be similar to the ones we have behind us. Development, not revolution. In Korea though, right now? I honestly don’t know. I’m always a skeptic, but even I have to be honest and admit that Kim’s moves have me surprised. Is he serious or what is he up to? Motivation in the south is different. The official stance of all politicians in the south is unification, just as it was in West Germany before 1990. That the population in the South, particularly the young, see things differently, is a different thing. They see just how big a sacrifice from the South would be needed to bring the North up to par. I’ve written about this before.

So what do I do? What if I write the detente into the novel only to have reality suffer another setback? As a writer, I want my books not just to mirror my time, I’d like for my stories to be “timeless”, not primarily for commercial reasons, but because timeless stories are more relevant. It’s why we still read Shakespeare. His stories, the conflicts he describes are truly timeless.

I’ll be honest: I don’t know what to do. I’m still thinking, talking to my publisher. If you have any recommendations, thoughts, please let me know. We have about a week or ten days to come up with a solution to this conundrum.

Finally

As always, if you like my blog, my writing, feel free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter (top right on this page) with competitions and hopefully interesting reading. Interact with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and/or Instagram. Have a great week and don’t be shy. Your experiences and comments are most welcome.

Cultural superiority: good intentions often pave the way to hell

First of all, what do I mean with “cultural superiority”. It’s this idea that “my” culture is somehow better than someone else’s. It’s similar to the term ethnocentricity but differs from it in that you actually DO know about other cultures and still think your own is superior. Let me exemplify the difference: ethnocentricity is e.g. studying psychology at a western university and not seeing the name of a single researcher from China or Asia, not reading a single book about the history of psychology on different continents. Cultural superiority is when you think that the way your culture handles certain aspects of life, e.g. the number of vacation days, is better than that of another country. Both may have common roots in preconceptions, racism even.

As a writer, I often come across cultural superiority in the books that I read, and in my own writing, I have to be careful not to judge other cultures based on my own views, but to be balanced in my views. That isn’t always easy. Allow me to exemplify with a couple of examples with regards to my coming novel Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm which plays out in the United States and South Korea.

Eating cats and dogs

Last night I read an article that the United States Congress wants to officially make it illegal to eat cats and dogs. So far so good. I’m sure felines and canines across the U.S. will all sigh in relief. Congress is finally taking action on something. However, the legislation has a catch, not just because it’s not really needed. It’s not about making sure that poor Americans who’ve been denied food stamps won’t turn to their pets instead. No. It is a signal to South Korea and other countries, where the consumption of cats and dogs is still a thing. This becomes a thing for a few months before and after every major event in Korea, before the world moves on again. And with Korea currently being in every news cycle, it’s not likely to go away any time soon. But seriously, if you think about it, why is eating a dog different from eating a chicken? Or a calf? A lamb? Or a piglet?

Imagine the uproar in America if Muslim countries and Israel suddenly decided to chastise the U.S. for its consumption of bacon and ham? Or if India, where the cow is considered sacred, began to pressure the U.S. to outlaw hamburgers? Surely, 1.4 billion Indians outweigh the views of 400 million Americans?

Equality and marriage laws…

As a gay man, I’m all for equality, and I will voice my views wherever I can, including this globally (except Russia when Putin’s angry with me) available blog. And yes, I’d love for every human being to be able to get married in every country on Earth, not just nineteen or twenty. Wouldn’t it also be great if countries who do not allow single-sex marriages to accept such unions entered in other countries (as the EU demands of its member states), the way we accept unions from other countries which may greatly differ from what we allow here? But no such luck.

Most Western countries will accept marriages between children if the was legally married in their home country, and we’ll also not consider wives two to four “single” if they were legally wed in a Muslim country, as difficult as it may be to stomach for us. There have been calls to stop such unions, but I’m afraid it would only make it more difficult for us to work with those countries to accept our views of the world. Cultural superiority goes both ways.

Criminalizing behavior elsewhere

Last week, Swedish lawmakers decided not to pursue a proposed legislation that would’ve made buying sex illegal even abroad, at least for Swedes and residents here. Norway is currently the only country with such a law on the books. In Sweden, it’s been illegal to buy sex for many years, while it’s perfectly okay to sell it (in an effort not to stigmatize sex workers.) The reason for the abandonment was simple: fear of retribution.

Imagine if countries suddenly felt they could prosecute their citizens and residents for actions in other countries. It would be a serious breach of a state’s sovereignty. Please note that we are only talking about democracies here. Non-democratic regimes have no respect for the rule of law anyway… The country that has most such “elsewhere” laws on the book is the United States, with their taxation laws at the forefront. As a Swiss living in Sweden, I don’t pay Swiss taxes here. Americans in Sweden, however, get to pay twice, forcing many to give up their citizenship because they can’t afford it.

But it goes beyond financial means. What if Ireland (where e.g. abortion is still illegal) were to punish women for getting one in the U.K., or in Sweden? Or what if an LGBT person from Russia were to be thrown in jail for going to a gay club in New York while on vacation? Borderline case, since Russia isn’t a democracy, but still. You get my point.

The risks of cultural superiority

The biggest risk is of course that it can backfire, as the example with the meat shows. But more than that, it also shows a lack of in-depth knowledge, of why some cultures do things differently. Why is child labor still a “thing” in South Asia? Hardly because parents think it’s a “good” idea… Severe poverty along with different definitions of child- and adulthood are more likely the real reasons behind this phenomenon. And when you look at the bigger picture you’ll also be able to do something about it in a way that doesn’t make it worse or aggravates people. Child labor is a great example of how our western views make things worse for millions and millions of people. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think children should work either. They should go to school. But we’re doing it all wrong today, simply cutting off suppliers who use child labor.

In my coming novel, I ran the risk of being guilty of cultural superiority as well, and it was an effort to make sure to depict both American and Korean society on equal footing, despite my personal convictions. This also affected the story itself, the plot, and how the book ultimately ends. Not that I can go into any details here (spoiler alert!)

What are your experiences? A problem? How can we address it? Let’s hear it…

As always, if you like my blog, my writing, feel free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter (top right on this page) with competitions and hopefully interesting reading. Interact with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and/or Instagram. Have a great week and don’t be shy. Your experiences and comments are most welcome.

Facebook turned us into products: there’s not much we can do about it…

I resisted Facebook’s lure, for a long time, but when my husband turned thirty, and most of his uni friends were on Facebook, I caved in to pressure and signed up, mostly to be able to invite them to the party. But I was instantly hooked because I had dozens of people waiting for me. It should’ve been a warning sign: for years, Facebook had been creating a shadow profile for me, with everyone’s search for me added to it. When I finally logged on, all those searches were friend requests waiting for me. All I had to do was accept and my timeline began to populate. I was hooked…

That was then…

That was 2009. Nine years later, my relationship with Facebook has changed. With almost 2,000 connections, my timeline is no longer a reflection of my real friends and their lives. The Facebook algorithm will make sure you only see the people you recently talked to (or liked one of their posts), while the rest slowly fade into oblivion.

Here are some of the “interests” that Facebook assigned to me. Stick figure? Ink? Come on Facebook… Really?

In the years passed, I’ve always followed Facebook rules, creating business pages for my company, and an author page (rather than a profile) for my author persona. Most of my writing colleagues have author profiles instead. Against the rules, but smart, as pages don’t work anymore unless you have a significant monetary budget. I noted that my final posts on my page were seen only by a handful of the thousand followers. No reason to keep at it. I deleted it, as I had my company page.

Facebook doesn’t give a shit about us…

They’ll never admit it, but it’s a fact: Facebook doesn’t care about us. Mr. Zuckerberg said as much when he first launched the site, something along the lines of how “stupid people were to offer us their data for free…” And indeed, we are. A while ago, I began to notice the details of how Facebook’s many algorithms serve me advertising. Sometimes you’d click on something and suddenly you’ll be served ads for weeks. I travel a lot, and for weeks after searching for a flight, I’d be served flight ads from all kinds of sites and airlines. Odd, after you book. But I guess even algorithms are limited in their intelligence.

I began to look at the “interests” Facebook thinks I have, and as of today, I’ve deleted 549 interests. Mind you, they’re still all there! But at least I see a lot less advertising. I’ll keep at it! But it takes a lot of work. And the algorithm isn’t as smart as you might think. Just a few days ago I got two new “interests” about “Ted”, one for the organization that does the talks and one for the movie. They claim I “liked” different things, but I know for a fact that I never clicked on the movie because I never even heard about it.

As an author…

Living in Sweden, writing in English, Facebook is pretty much the only tool I have at my disposal to reach my audience. Sure, I have this blog, but we’ve all seen a reduction in blog readership in recent years. There’s YouTube, but that requires so much work for so few viewers. And there’s my newsletter, but we all know how many of us actually read them. I do, the numbers are in the low single digit area, nothing new under the sun here.

I’ve removed hundreds of so-called “interests” that Facebook assigned to me, but most of those were bogus, to begin with. The Facebook algorithm isn’t as smart as you might think…

Twitter you say? LOL, I say. If anyone else is like me, they’ve long ago stopped looking at their feed. A Twitter user following more than a thousand users has a timeline moving so fast you can never see much of anything. It’s only through searches you can find stuff. I do it once every blue moon. Twitter has long ago lost its appeal to me. Pinterest? I never really got that, and like Facebook, the algorithm is weird. All I ever got to see were naked men, and yeah, I’m not buying. Instagram? Another Facebook spider… But it’s my favorite one, my personal indulgence. I get to watch beautiful nature pictures, and I upload (mostly) nature pictures myself. I don’t use it professionally, with very few exceptions. Who’d follow me if I only uploaded book-related images? Natasha’s covers are amazing, but yeah. It gets old very quickly.

Facebook is still the main tool

For now (and the foreseeable future), Facebook seems to be it. I don’t see any alternative. I post publicly what pertains to my writing, and in various degrees of privacy what is personal or private. There have always been posts that aren’t meant for the public eye, but sadly, Zuckerberg’s creation sees it all, reads it all, apparently even posts we write and never post, messages we type and delete without sending away. It’s disgusting. But legally? Watertight, I’m sure. And we all signed off on it when we quickly accepted the small print when we signed up. Who reads that stuff, ever? I don’t. Because you don’t have a choice. Want to use XYZ you have to sign off on their terms. You can’t say, “hey, I’ll take this, but not this…” It’s all or nothing.

Personally, I’d be happy to pay for Facebook, to get better features and to get rid of the Kraken that constantly monitors my every movement. But I also know that I can’t trust Facebook. I’m convinced that even if I paid, they’d still monitor me, so why should I pay? In the end, it’s a matter of trust, faith to a degree, and while I do have faith in some of the companies I work with, I cannot trust a company whose business model is based on data mining. I don’t trust Google, I don’t trust Facebook.

So what can I do? What could you do?

Not that much. I have limited the data I have on Facebook, sadly they already have it. Removing e.g. your political interests now is too little, too late. They’ve already stored what you once posted. And to limit visibility to yourself? LOL Remember, they even read what you don’t post… My basic assumption for all things Internet is this:

only post what doesn’t shy away from the light of day!

Further proof that Facebook’s algorithm is stupid. I was in Switzerland, yes, but that was several days ago, for two hours… It’s a blunt tool, for better or worse. As an advertiser, I’d think twice to use the more detailed info for my ads. As a former Facebook advertiser, I also know that they don’t work as well as Facebook claims.

If you don’t want someone to read it, don’t post it. In the end, whether it’s Facebook or a nemesis of yours, doesn’t matter. This policy has served me well, although I’ve made mistakes of my own. Apart from that, I have removed all likes of pages on Facebook (and won’t like any new pages.) I have removed all my advertising preferences and will keep doing that. I’ve limited the number of groups I’m a member of to the ones I really want to be a member of, none of them public. I don’t like as much anymore, most certainly not clickbait posts (from various humor pages that people share). I don’t do tests (and will unfriend people who do and thus risk sharing my data with other Krakens.) I’ve also begun to hide most of the news posts that appear on my newsfeed.

Not so much because it’s about data mining, but because it’s so toxic. Mind you, that’s an entire post of its own… I’ve also uninstalled Messenger from my phone. Three Facebook apps are enough: Instagram, FB & WhatsApp, the latter I only use because of my dad and sister.

What do you do? How have you reacted to the recent Facebook news?

In a way, the friends of mine who are offline are avenged, but at what price? Social hermits? We all need to be smarter about how we use social media. We need to fight back and be smart about what we share, throw the Kraken off-track. What do you do? Have you resigned? Given up or are you employing active tactics of resistance? Let’s hear it! All tips are welcome.

As always, if you like my blog, my writing, feel free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter (top right on this page) with competitions and hopefully interesting reading. Interact with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and/or Instagram. Have a great week and don’t be shy. Your experiences and comments are most welcome.

Racism in publishing: if you believe Riptide is the outlier, you’d be wrong

Another scandal in the LGBT publishing sector. After cat-phishing, it’s sexual harassment and racism. Make no mistake, the LGBT community ain’t no different than the rest of the world. We are as guilty as every other community of white-washing, racism, and all those other inherently human flaws. Why? Believe it or not, we are human, too (despite what Mikey Pence and his cronies will have you believe.) The problem with racism in publishing isn’t that it is so common, that it is as institutionalized, as structural as it is in the rest of society. No. The problem is that we, as intellectuals, as artists, who are supposed to see through this shit, expected to lead the way, to be that painful stick-up society’s ass, aren’t more aware of this. We should be mirrors to society, not of it.

The typical reaction

The statement from Sarah Lyons on POC on Riptide covers. She clearly indicates the financial reasons for it. No excuse, but sadly a valid explanation. From Xen’s post.

When Xen’s rightfully angry blog post hit the air-waves, Riptide almost instantly pulled the plug on the editor which had made those racist remarks on their behalf, and later issued statement after statement after statement about how sorry they were and that they would do better, somehow, someday. I for one don’t really believe they’ve really thought about the underlying issues, but are scrambling to save a business, anyway they can. That’s fine of course, I just hope they ‘really’ do their homework. But the comments I’ve read online about Sarah being a racist and that she’s to blame for all this? NO, that’s making it too easy. It’s letting Riptide off the hook and it’s assigning way too much blame to an employee.

An editor doesn’t get to make decisions about a publisher’s corporate policy about what goes on a cover (or not). She merely informs authors of her boss’s rules. Ms. Lyons transgressions in the department of sexual harassment are an entirely different thing…

I challenged myself to go through Riptide’s covers, to see how many POC they actually have on their covers today. The e-mail to Xen was three years ago. Do the same, and you’ll see that very little has changed since. I found five “diverse” covers before I got bored, five out of maybe 100? Now go do the same for other publishers, from the big five to M/M romance behemoth DSP or any other publisher. Just for fun (I haven’t.) You’ll see a very similar thing, everywhere. Minorities are grossly underrepresented everywhere.

It’s not just Riptide…

The problem with structural racism or white privilege (two sides of the same coin) is how it is affecting every aspect of society. When a character in a book isn’t described in terms of ethnicity, we automatically (subconsciously) assume them to be white. If we don’t say they’re gay, they’re assumed to be straight. If we don’t mention they’re Jewish, they’re assumed to be Christian. Even minority readers fall into that trap because that’s what they always see, read, watch. There’s that nasty thing called socialization. It takes a conscious effort on behalf of every individual to overcome that bias, it’s a lot of hard work, and you’re never done. It sits so deep within us that it’s become invisible, like muscle memory.

I could say the same about homophobia. Even as a gay man, more than halfway through my life, I am a homophobe, subconsciously. I still react negatively (instinctively) at seeing a camp man, I find feminine behavior in men (and vice versa) difficult to reconcile at first, and I really, really have to consciously make an effort to keep my mouth shut and to smile and treat that human being with dignity. I’ve been raised a homophobe, and it’s difficult to get that shit out of your system (which makes coming out so fucking difficult for so many of us.) By now I think I’ve got my brain under control and people don’t see/notice, but I still do, every time, and it’s painful.

I’ve seen racism at play, and it’s utterly disgusting. I tend to forgive though because most people aren’t hopeless. I want people to have a second chance. They’re not evil. They’ve been raised that way by society. I’ve come to understand why we are the way we are, and I’d much rather have a conversation to show that person their erroneous ways than to shout from the rooftop just what an amazing person I am (not really), compared to the rest. On Twitter and Facebook people scream, yell and are all high and mighty. They pretend to be holier than thou, but yeah, that’s easy, because there’s no one to point a mirror at them, point to what they really feel, deep down. How they act. Nobody to force them to look at their own privilege.

White privilege is almost invisible to those who have it

Sometimes white people will ask you “how am I privileged? I’m poor, I have less money, fame, and success than a lot of [insert minority rep of your choice]” Privilege is hard to pin down when you’re inside the bubble. Money is a sort of privilege, of course, so is education. A rich white person is obviously more privileged than a poor white person. But they’re still both white. Just as I pointed out in the blog post linked above, white privilege is only visible to POC. To a white person, seeing six Star Wars episodes with only white actors in the lead doesn’t raise any eyebrows. It’s natural. Normal. But boy did those same people raise hell when one of two lead humans in episode seven suddenly wasn’t white. That would be racism. The former is white privilege.

When an innocent white person walks down Broadway toward Times Square and meets a police patrol, they feel safe. When an innocent black person is in the same situation they’re thinking about what might happen: will I be stopped, abused etc. When a white person walks into Macy’s to buy make-up, they don’t notice that all the models have fair skin. A black person looking for makeup will most likely have to frequent a specialty shop to find make-up for their skin tone. Same thing for hair products. Or even band-aids. Skin-colored band-aids are light beige. I’ve never seen anything that wouldn’t scream loudly on a person from South India or Africa. That’s white privilege. But most white people don’t think about this ever. It’s just normal to them. But it’s painfully obvious to everyone else.

Black Panther? Heard of that blockbuster movie from Marvel? That is so very much the exception to the rule that it is a slap in the face of the black populace of the world, just as Lando Calrissian was in Star Wars. From the first short Superman movie in 1941 to 2017, that’s seventy-six years without a black superhero in a major film. White privilege. There is a painfully well-written (and played) episode in Star Trek DS9, Far Beyond the Stars, where Captain Cisco is dreaming about being a black comic author, essentially inventing “Captain Cisco” and facing the ridicule of the time. If you haven’t seen that, watch it. It’s on Netflix. It explains this all so well.

So what can we do?

Willem is one of the very few whites left on Earth. Everybody else is black or brown. In this story, Willem is the POC.

First of all, forgive. Second, seek a conversation, a dialogue. I remember back in late 2014 after I had begun work on my novel Willem of the Tafel, only a chapter or two. I sent a message to my New York publicist, excited about my coming novel about a black man in an underground (literally!) culture in South Africa. The message back was a shock: “are you sure you want to do this? Nobody’s going to buy a book about a black hero…” Racist statement? One could also argue that said publicist (a POC!) was trying to warn me of the consequences of pursuing such a story. He simply pointed out that I sell most of my books in America and that most people buying books in America would not buy a book about a black hero. That’s also what’s at the core of the Riptide decision (at one time) not to feature POC on their covers. Most readers of LGBT books are white, they are economically privileged and have the money to buy books (another aspect of said white privilege.) And most of them are not interested in POC. Putting them on the cover would be an automatic signal to move on.

It’s also the reason why there are over 100,000 M/M novels out there and almost no F/F. Simply because most straight white women (who are the dominant reader base) don’t get moist when reading about two women forking. Publishers, editors, and authors are in the business of making money, and therefore follow the money. There’s money in M/M, but not in gay fiction. There’s money in beautiful, handsome, white men, but not in POC. There’s money in healthy characters, but none in disabled characters (my friend Tracy says “we’re invisible” about her condition. Sadly, she is right about it.)

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

There is another complexity to all this. Writing about POC, minorities etc. is hard work. As an author, you need to do your research properly and get it right. And there are those out there who will still put you through the ringer no matter how hard you worked to get it right, even if you did get it right. It’s a thing, a dogmatic belief in some that only members of a minority should be allowed to write about that particular minority. I don’t subscribe to that, but it shows that even if you try to write diverse stories, you can’t please them all. Their main argument? Privilege; majority privilege. They don’t have the privilege to write those stories because they have to work, or because they don’t have the connections to publishers etc. They do have a point, of course, but forbidding others to write while basking in self-righteous pity only makes their minority more invisible. And thus deny their minority the chance to become popular in fiction.

Not everyone is in it for the money…

I make $500 bucks a year (give or take) in royalties. I don’t make a living off my writing. I get to write the important stories, the difficult ones, along with some other amazing authors who don’t (have to) care about money (or compromise their creativity to get it.) We care about the stories that need to be told. And we are lucky to have found a home with publishers who indulge us, who also don’t put money first. Or they increasingly self-publish, thanks to modern technology.

When I got the original feedback on Willem, I was scared. Scared of sales losses and what it might do to my reputation. I was still new to writing and quickly decided to change my approach, and I killed my intended main character in chapter two in an accident that gets Willem’s story rolling. I thought long and hard about how to tackle the subject. In the end, Willem of the Tafel turned out to be a big middle finger up white privilege’s ass, as Willem is literally white as white comes, but the rest of his future Earth is almost 100% POC. I reversed racism, thrust it in Willem’s innocent face to showcase how ugly racism really is. Hopefully some lily-white asses were appalled by how miserably Willem and the few remaining whites are treated, and hopefully, one or two realized that Willem is, in fact, a mirror of our world, set 500 years into the future. Willem is indeed a POC.

From Willem to Martin

My coming novel, Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm (sign up for the newsletter, top right, to be the first to partake of the cover reveal this Thursday), features a black, main character. Martin is amazing, and I am very proud of him and his life. I’m no longer afraid. So what if no one buys the book? The ones who do will like it, and they’ll like Martin. I’m sure because the story is a beautiful one. Martin has taught me a lot, particularly about the country he longs back to, Korea. The second main character is a Korean. I consciously try to paint my characters in different colors (pun intended.) I’ve included various aspects of disability, ethnicity, religion, and gender regularly, mind-fucking my readers (I once had a proofreader question why a man would take his wife’s last name, to just state one example!) As an author, I think this is my responsibility. Make people question their assumptions about what is (right) and what isn’t.

Publishers have a responsibility, too. Encourage diverse stories, from a diverse authorship, but even from the (existing) mainly white authors. Last not least, readers have a responsibility, too, to engage with diverse stories, just as those of us who are “diverse” have been forced to engage with mainstream stories in school, books, TV, the movies ever since our childhood. We need to talk about this. We need to have a discourse about racism, not attack each other on Twitter and pretend to be flawless. Because we’re not. None of us are. They who cast the first stone… Just saying! So let’s not judge Riptide too harshly. Yes, they fucked up, badly, but a) there are very good (as disgusting as this may sound) business reasons for them to have done so, and b) they’re not alone.

Author Hans M Hirschi, here with his oldest feline friend, is a member of multiple minorities and sadly all too familiar with racism and discrimination.

They just happened to be the first one caught in the cross-fire. Hopefully, they’ll learn their lesson and will find a way to combine making money with embracing diversity, fully, and honestly. Either that or quietly disappear into the darkness of oblivion.

Famous last words…

Let’s talk about this… I’m curious to hear your points of view. Mind you, I monitor all comments and if you’re not civil in tone, I won’t approve it. As always, if you like my blog, my writing, feel free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter (top right on this page) with competitions and hopefully interesting reading. Interact with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and/or Instagram.

Silent Terrorism – a book that is difficult to read, and a slap in the face of those who believe in the West’s moral superiority

I’ll admit it. I’ve read an early draft of this story, over a year ago. There were discussions about how the story might be perceived in the light of the U.S. elections, Brexit and the alarming increase of Islamophobia around the world. I’ve been allowed to read it again, in its final version. The book is published tomorrow. Silent Terrorism had the same effect on me as it did when I first read it: disgust (at some of the descriptions of violence and torture, and – frankly – some other scenes) but also a feeling of deep respect for the author and the publisher, for writing and putting this story out there. Some will not like it, neither in Saudi Arabia nor in Sweden (representing the western world, as the author states in her afterword), but this is a book that deserves being read.

Current events

The telling cover of Silent Terrorism.

In a way it’s sad the book was delayed by a year. We now have a crown prince in Saudi Arabia hell-bent on modernizing his country. Women get to unveil, drive cars and leave the house without a male guardian. What’s the country coming to? Civilization? Alas, even crown prince Mohammed doesn’t ever talk about LGBT rights, because, and this is expertly explained in Ms. Novak’s Silent Terrorism, Saudis believe that they don’t have any LGBT people in their midst. It’s supposedly a Western thing (odd given that we all descend from common African ancestors, but alas.) Against the backdrop of current events in Saudi Arabia (which includes both the secret police and the religious police forces), reading the novel showcased the research done by Ms. Novak. Impressive!

A fast-paced political thriller

The story as such is very high pace. There is hardly any downtime, the characters are chiseled out as they run, hide, leap, yell at each other or suffer torture. But they are, all of them, very much real-life human beings, very believable, credible. The only caricatures are the Swedish politicians portrayed in the novel, and I can only assume that to be purposely done, as they are indeed to act as stand-ins for much of the Western world and how we kowtow to black gold.

I haven’t read a thriller in a long time, and it was refreshing to indulge in the pace, the complexity of the plot and never really knowing how things end. Ms. Novak certainly does throw more than one curveball to make sure the reader stays on their toes and at one point I had accepted my fate and figured, “okay, this is it!”, but alas, I was wrong, again. Brilliant.

The finer points

Did I like everything about the story? Yes. However, I’ll grant you that I thought there was too much swearing, cursing and yelling. I don’t think I can remember any conversation (except at the very, very end) that does not involve people upset, screaming at the top of their lungs. I’m not a big fan of that kind of language/discourse, but that is, of course, a question of taste, and to a degree certainly warranted given the situations the characters constantly find themselves in. But yeah, sometimes less is more.

Silent Terrorism is like Ms. Novak’s My Name is Ayla, an important book in today’s world. The LGBT community needs dissonant voices. We are grateful for stories with happy endings, stories with fluff and rosy cheeks. But we also need the world to know that yes, there are still 76 countries where being LGBT is illegal, 13 countries where being LGBT carries the death sentence, and the het majority needs to hear this side of the story, too, not just about out and proud gay athletes and actors marrying their sweethearts. We’re not home free yet. I’ve bought the book (after Ms. Novak provided me with a free ARC to facilitate this review) because Phetra pledges to donate 50% of the proceeds to a sadly much-needed LGBT organization.

Silent Terrorism is releasing tomorrow

Silent Terrorism is released tomorrow, March 17th, from Beaten Track Publishing as paperback and e-book and is available on Amazon (for pre-order) and your other favorite sales channels. If you enjoy a political thriller, like exotic places and would like to learn more about the plight of the LGBT community in a country like Saudi Arabia, give this book a chance. You will not regret it.

Feel free to contribute! As always, if you like my blog, my writing, feel free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter (top right on this page) with competitions and hopefully interesting reading. Interact with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and/or Instagram. Have a great weekend. I’ll be back on Monday with a post about racism in the publishing industry and how racism is a red thread through much of my own writing…

Writing and Politics are often on my mind: takes sides or stay quiet?

Elections in Germany, Italy, the ongoing Brexit-chaos in the UK, extremist governments in Poland and Hungary, not to mention the reality show called “The White House”… It seems the world is going nuts. Politicians seem to no longer care about lying in public, quickly having learned from the American President that you can get away with murder (or was that the Philippine President?) It makes it almost impossible for voters to make a sensible choice. Artists have always been right there, in the middle of the vortex, either applauding benefactors or criticizing power. Writing and Politics is something always on my mind. What is our responsibility?

Everything is politics…

I recall the above statement from my college days when we were asked by a professor what politics was. The ultimate answer was “everything” in life, because it is all somehow influenced by the state, by society, and thus, politics plays a role. Which of course makes it difficult to stay away from politics in writing. Even the fluffiest of romance novels is somehow political, as it will have a conundrum at its core, misunderstandings, hinders for the loving couple-to-be to overcome. That conundrum, those hinders are politics or could be. There is a reason to assume that not everyone will agree and that people could potentially take different sides. I’ve noted that in many cases, no matter the question, if taken to the public, people will have a tendency to split evenly, almost fifty-fifty, for and against.

I have no doubt: whatever we write about is politics. I was thinking about a line in my coming novel, where my Korean character openly laments the Japanese occupation in very strong words, while the MC tries to offer a different view. I’ve been thinking about that paragraph again, and again. Leave it there? Take out those two sentences to “diffuse” it? There are other similar examples. It’s difficult to avoid in a novel which plays out against the backdrop of a war that still affects our geopolitical situation.

What is a writer’s responsibility?

A question I often contemplate is this one: do I have a responsibility to take sides? Actively? Many famous authors and artists do, be it Stephen King (who was “blocked” by 45 on Twitter) or J. K. Rowling, who takes sides on a great many issues on her Twitter account. But what about our writing? I often think about this, not just in terms of politics. We have more than one character, and we can allow different characters take different sides. I specifically recall my novel Jonathan’s Promise, where I was exploring the limits of “for better or worse”. No answers, just the question. I wanted to let it play out, not having made up my mind on the issue. One character got to take one side and another the opposing, and I let them work it out.

Is this a workable theory for politics, too? It is the approach I’ve taken with the example above, re the Japanese occupation. Yet sometimes, it isn’t quite as simple. Some questions are more important to me, they are issues where I have a clear view. Let’s take women’s rights or civil rights. Or LGBT rights. In the new book, they’re all thematized. It’s impossible for me to mention e.g. comfort women and not condemn that. It’s impossible for me to not condemn the ongoing institutionalized racism in the U.S. I’d not be painting a very accurate picture of the lives of the African American people, would I? The same is true for the LGBT community suffering a horrendous backlash at the hands of the current regime in Washington.

Silence is being an accomplice

Here’s my take: if you stay quiet, you’re an accomplice. If you mention that a woman worked as a comfort woman under the Japanese occupation of Korea, as a fact, and you don’t say what a horrific practice that was, you’re an accomplice. If you mention how blacks are stopped on the streets by the police because they’re black, and you don’t mention that this is racist, you become an accomplice. I don’t believe that we as writers have the luxury to “not take sides”, not in the long run. At the end of Jonathan’s Promise, I had arrived at my personal POV, and it was instrumental in the resolution of the novel.

The same is my take on my writing in general. I may use my writing to weigh the pros and cons of complex issues, but once I arrive at a stance, I will make that known. Not in my own voice, but through my characters. I am a citizen of this world, and I have a responsibility to work for its betterment, to contribute to a world that is a better place. I understand that not everyone will agree with me. Others may take opposing sides. I may offend, I may hurt, but I may also embolden, strengthen! Each piece of art is part of a discourse.

What is your take? Agree, disagree?

Writing and politics; hese are my personal views, of course. I’m fully aware that taking sides in contentious issues puts the author at risk. Bad reviews, public persecution even. But that is a risk we must take, or so I think. Feel free to contribute! As always, if you like my blog, my writing, feel free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter (top right on this page) with competitions and hopefully interesting reading. Interact with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and/or Instagram. Have a great week.